TFS 2012 - Creating a Staging, then Release workflow

Question

I have recently installed TFS 2012 on the same server as IIS 7.5 is installed. My question is this, using VS 2012 I can successfully checkin/out and build to the Staging (staging.domain.com) site... but how in the name of all things holy do I create the ability to build/publish to Release (domain.com) site once the changes on the staging site have been approved??

Thanks all!

Answer 1

You can use MSDeploy directly or Publishing profiles to specify the destinations. I'd go with the former, creating MSDeploy packages within your TFS Team Builds. You have these options to build packages within TFS:

1. Add /p:DeployOnBuild=true to your Build Definition MSBuild Arguments. This should create a package for each configuration in the drop location.
2. Call MSBuild /t:package in a customized Build Process template. This will cause the projects to be built and packaged in the drop location

In either case, you can customize package parameters for each environment. I have more detailed steps on this here, though it doesn't include the TFS integration.